Pettinger continues hill-climb dominance

Reigning national hill-climb champion Gunnar Gronlund (RST-Trigon) had to settle for second place in the Weaver Valley CC climb of the Cat and Fiddle in Cheshire, as prolific winner Tejvan Pettinger (Sri Chinmoy CT) secured yet another convincing win.

Pettinger, who had won numerous climbs so far this season, including last weekend’s Swindon RC two-stage, clocked 21-02 for the 6.5-mile climb, and was more than a minute ahead of Gronlund over one of the longest hill-climb courses in the land.

The Cat and Fiddle course was used for the National hill-climb championships ten years ago and the winner on that day, Mark Lovatt (Planet X), rode this year’s event and finished fourth, while Ian Stott (Blackburn & District CTC) was third a decade ago and also this year too.

Veteran Karl Denton (Blumilk.com) took a third consecutive victory when he won both Sunderland Clarion hill-climbs in County Durham.

Denton set a new course record of 3-46.8 for the mile-long course at Lady Park, Lamesley, and also took victory in the afternoon’s climb of Hammer Square Bank, a new course which is a short but massively steep challenge. Denton clocked 1-52.8 to win by 4.2 seconds.

In Scotland, last year’s winner David Griffiths (Glasgow Wheelers) won the Inverclyde Velo hill-climb at Lyle Hill, Battery Park in Gourock.

The 21-year-old clocked 4-01.57 to win by more than four seconds over the 1.1-mile course.

And in Wales, Glyndwr Griffiths (Bristol South CC) was the overall winner in Cardiff Byways triple hill-climb. He was fastest over all three climbs around Ogmore, although he won the final climb by just 0.1sec from runner-up Darran Carpenter (Cwmcarn Paragon CC).

In time trialling, there were some fast times set in the Eastern Counties CA 10 at Six Mile Bottom in Cambridgeshire, where good still conditions helped Adam French (Rapha Condor) to victory with 19-47.